Policy Papers
2015
June 29, 2015
2015 External Sector Report - Individual Economy Assessments
Description:
The external sector assessments use a wide range of methods, including the External Balance Assessment (EBA) developed by the IMF’s Research Department to estimate desired current account balances and real exchange rates (see Annex I of the 2015 External Sector Report, also IMF Working Paper WP/13/272 for a complete description of the EBA methodology). In all cases, the overall assessment is based on the judgment of IMF staff drawing on the inputs provided by these model estimates and other analysis and the estimates are subject to uncertainty.
The assessments discuss a broad range of external indicators: the current account, the real effective exchange rate, capital and financial accounts flows and measures, FX intervention and reserves and the foreign asset or liability position. The individual economy assessments are discussed with the respective authorities as a part of bilateral surveillance.
June 29, 2015
2015 External Sector Report
Description:
After narrowing modestly in 2013, the global scale of current account imbalances, and of excess imbalances, held steady in 2014. Over the last several years, while the country composition of imbalances has rotated somewhat, overall there has been little progress on reducing excess imbalances. Excess deficits narrowed in some cases, but widened in others; progress on reducing excess surpluses has stalled.
An unfinished policy agenda to reduce excess imbalances remains. Efforts by both surplus and deficit economies would be mutually reinforcing and support growth.
Several significant recent developments will affect external positions in 2015: sharply lower oil prices, cyclical divergence and different monetary policies among the major economies, and related currency movements. Those developments do not overturn the previous pattern of excess imbalances and associated policy agenda, but they will have significant effects and raise new issues.
June 24, 2015
Eligibility to Use the Fund's Facilities for Concessional Financing, 2015
Description:
The review of PRGT eligibility continues to be guided by the principles of maintaining a transparent, rules-based, and parsimonious framework—ensuring uniformity of treatment across members in similar situations while taking appropriate account of country-specific circumstances. The graduation policy seeks to maintain broad alignment with the World Bank’s IDA graduation practices, while also remaining consistent with the principle of ensuring the self-sustainability of the PRGT’s lending capacity over time.
The paper concludes that the existing framework remains broadly appropriate, but could be enhanced in a few areas, including: Making use of additional data sources, namely the IMF BEL database, in assessing that a country has durable and substantial market access, supplementing the current reliance on the World Bank’s IDS database that is produced with a significant lag; Sharpening the specification of circumstances under which the presence of serious short-term vulnerabilities would justify non-graduation of a country that meets the income graduation criterion. This would entail limiting the application of the serious short-term vulnerabilities criterion for countries that exceed the applicable income graduation threshold by 50 percent or more.
June 24, 2015
Proposed Amendments to the Special Data Dissemination Standard Plus and the Annex on the General Data Dissemination System
Description: The Special Data Dissemination Standard Plus (SDDS Plus) was established in October 2012 to reinforce and supplement the Fund’s Data Standards Initiatives and assist Fund members who decide to adhere to the SDDS Plus with regard to the publication of comprehensive, timely, accessible, and reliable economic and financial statistical data in a world of continuing economic and financial integration. The SDDS Plus also requires adherents to disseminate metadata to promote public knowledge and understanding of their compilation practices with respect to the required data categories. During the Ninth Review of the Fund’s data Standards Initiatives in May 2015 executive directors supported changing the transition period to meet all SDDS Plus requirements to five years after the adherence date. On July 1, 2015, the Executive Board approved the proposed change. The existing rules governing the SDDS Plus are superseded by the new SDDS Plus legal text.
June 19, 2015
Quota Formula - Data Update
Description:
The IMF staff has updated individual member country data for the variables used in the quota formula for the period 2001-13.
The staff paper also presents updated calculated quota shares based on the current quota formula. The current quota formula includes a GDP variable, which is a blend of GDP at market rates and GDP at purchasing power parity (PPP), openness, variability, and international reserves. The International Monetary and Financial Committee has called for agreement on a new quota formula as part of the 15th General Review of Quotas. The paper presents a limited set of illustrative simulations of possible reforms of the quota formula using the updated quota data. These simulations are purely illustrative and do not represent proposals.
The new data tables that can be downloaded via the below link include also the comparable value of each variable for the previous quota dataset, which was based on data covering the period 2000-2012. The information is presented in millions of SDRs (Table A1) and in percent of their respective global totals (Tables A2 and A3). A table showing calculated quota shares based on the current quota formula is also included (Table A4).
Data sources and a description of the quota variables are discussed in Quota Formula – Data Update - Statistical Appendix; IMF Policy Paper; July 2015.
Download Quota Data: Updated IMF Quota Formula Variables - July 2015
June 15, 2015
Financing For Development - Revisiting the Monterrey Consensus
Description: 2015 is set to be a pivotal year for the international development agenda, with agreements to be reached on the objectives and policies for promoting development that is economically, socially, and environmentally sustainable through 2030. The first stage in completing the debate on these issues is the Third UN Conference on Financing for Development (FfD), to be held in Addis Ababa during July 13–16, 2015, which aims to build an international consensus on the actions needed to ensure that sufficient financing is available for developing countries in pursuing sustainable development.
June 12, 2015
Balance Sheet Analysis in Fund Surveillance
Description:
Balance sheets convey vital information about economic prospects and risks. Balance sheet analysis captures the role that financial frictions and mismatches play in creating fragility and amplifying shocks. This is key to understanding the macroeconomic outlook, identifying vulnerabilities, and tracing the transmission of potential shocks and policies.
This paper reviews the use of balance sheet analysis in the Fund’s bilateral surveillance and introduces some practical examples of how it can be deepened. Recent evaluations of IMF surveillance––including the 2014 TSR––have emphasized the importance of strengthening balance sheet analysis and coverage of macro-financial issues. This paper is a first step that highlights useful examples of such analysis conducted by staff over the last decade, documents the data and tools that have been used, and mentions some limitations. In addition, it discusses recent improvements in the coverage and quality of balance sheet data through initiatives launched in the wake of the global crisis, as well as key remaining gaps, addressing which requires international collaboration.
June 11, 2015
Financing for Development - Enhancing the Financial Safety Net for Developing Countries
Description:
Access to Fund financial resources provides a financial safety net to help countries manage adverse shocks, acting as a potential supplement to foreign reserves when there is a balance of payments need. Such support is especially important to developing countries with limited capacity to borrow in domestic or foreign markets.
This paper proposes a set of measures that would expand access to Fund resources for developing countries, as one of the initiatives the Fund is undertaking as part of the wider effort of the international community to support countries in pursuing the post- 2015 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
June 11, 2015
Extension of the Period for Consent to Increase Quotas Under the Fourteenth General Review of Quotas, the 2008 Reform of Quota and Voice, and the Eleventh General Review of Quotas
Description:
This paper proposes a further six-month extension of the period for consent to increase quotas under the Fourteenth General Review of Quotas. The current deadline is due to expire on June 30, 2015; however, Board of Governor’s Resolution No. 66-2 provides that the Executive Board may extend the period for consent as it may determine. An extension under Resolution No. 66-2 will also extend the periods of consent for quota increases under the 2008 Reform of Quota and Voice (Resolution No. 63-2) and the Eleventh General Review of Quotas (Resolution No. 53-2).
As of June 10, 2015, 24 members have not yet consented to their proposed quota increases under Resolution No. 66-2 (see Appendix I). Once the conditions for effectiveness of the individual quota increases are met, members may then pay for their quota increases to make them effective.
June 8, 2015
2015 Spillover Report
Description: Many countries around the globe, particularly the systemic advanced economies, face the challenge of closing output gaps and raising potential output growth. Addressing these challenges requires a package of macroeconomic, financial and structural policies that will boost both aggregate demand and aggregate supply, while closing the shortfall between demand and supply. Each element of this package is important and one cannot substitute for the other: easy monetary policy will not raise potential output just as structural reforms will not close the output gap. This report studies the impact on emerging markets and nonsystemic advanced economies from monetary policy actions in systemic advanced economies, with a look also at knock-on effects from the decline in world oil prices.